We Can All Be Cape Verdeans Sometimes.

When my daughter was six, she took her Grade 1 piano exam. It was face-to-face, and she flew into that examination room like she owned it. She jumped onto the piano stool, struck her first note, and you could feel the room dancing. When she finished, she turned to the examiner and asked, “Should I call you Mr Jacobs, or Mark?”

Six years old. Not a flicker of doubt.

That confidence, at least in that setting, vanished somewhere along the way. By the time she reached Grade 8, exams were fully remote, partly because of Covid, partly because the nerves of performing face-to-face had become too much. It was an event I dreaded for months. The endless recordings, take after take, after take. The anxiety was palpable, and I experienced every second of it with her.

I often look back and wonder: what would happen if we could all stay like that fearless six-year-old? No care, no doubt, no worry. Just the music and the moment.

I am wondering this now because I have spent the past three weeks watching my precious, beautiful island of Cape Verde turn up at the World Cup like warriors, never more so than last night. They played one of the tournament favourites, the reigning world champions, and if you watched it, you will not forget it any time soon: a sporting event for the ages.

Everyone has their own analysis of why Argentina won a game that many feel they lost. My father, with whom I spent the entire morning disagreeing, says Cape Verde looked too scared to play Argentina. I respectfully differ in my conclusion. Cape Verde turned up. They put us on the map and gave the world something to hold on to: a place where an underdog dared to dream, and in doing so, probably reset hearts and minds for years to come.

Here is what my daughter and my island have taught me. Fear does not disappear. It lives in all of us, at six years old and at sixty, in exam rooms and on the world’s biggest stages. The difference is not the absence of fear.

It is feeling the fear and doing it anyway, so that to everyone watching, it looks like courage.

My compatriots may or may not have felt fear as they went toe-to-toe with Messi and co. last night. But one thing is certain: whatever fear was there, they transcended it. We can all be Cape Verdeans sometimes.

by Miss Imanie

photos of Cape Verde also by Miss Imanie

cover image from X / Federação Cabo-verdiana de Futebol